fil-ter

Spread over tens of millions of consumers, [subsidy] costs seem small: the average American taxpayer, for example, pays only $322 each year to fund subsidies. But for some of the thousands of farmers who get such payments, the benefits are huge: from 1995 to 2005, roughly 75 percent of subsidy payments went to just 10 percent of the subsidy recipients, who took in an average of $91,000 a year; and 55 farmers received more than $1 million each.

Farm (and tobacco) subsidies, depressingly, are just one of those things that I don’t think will ever change in America.

Not only are married people more likely to become obese than those who are just dating, but young people who move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend tend to pack on the pounds too.

Apparently produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in your grandparents’ days, it also contains fewer nutrients — at least according to Donald R. Davis, a former research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in minerals (including magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc) than those harvested just 50 years ago.

Related: Music isn’t as good as it used to be.

[In 1981] Jarrell and Beverly found that fertilized plants contained larger absolute amounts of minerals than the unfertilized plants, but these amounts were sufficiently diluted by the increased dry matter that all mineral concentrations declined, except for phosphorus, which is the common fertilizer.

… plantings of low- and high-yield cultivars of broccoli and grains found consistently negative correlations between yield and concentrations of minerals and protein, a newly recognized genetic dilution effect.

(via kottke)

A very honest look at what it’s like to be very overweight:

I’m 5’6” and I weigh 530 pounds …

I have insulin resistance, hypertension, high cholesterol, gastroesophageal reflux disease, depression and social anxiety and am on medication for all of it. I take a lot of pills! I’ve had to sleep sitting up for the last several months. I do sleep but not long and not deeply…I miss dreaming. My circulation is horrible and my arms and legs frequently go numb or swell so badly I can’t move and I feel as if the skin is literally going to split open. My poor circulation also causes severe discoloration all over the lower half of my body as well as both forearms. I have some issues with incontinence because I carry all of my weight in my belly and there’s a lot of pressure on my bladder. My lower belly is so large and heavy that having it hang from my body is actually painful. I have a lot of problems with infections between my skin folds and summer really isn’t helping matters…

I’m in pain every moment of every day. I can’t walk or stand longer than a few seconds and I’m so afraid of my ankles or knees giving out from under me. Walking from my bedroom to the bathroom leaves me gasping for breath and my legs shaking from exertion.

Not an easy thing to write about. I wish her the best of luck.